“protecting the citizenry from dangers that they do not have the means or resources to protect themselves from is pretty much the purpose of government.”
Okay, but what government? Federal, state, local? Are you aware there’s a difference, or is it all of a piece to you? Have you ever bothered reading the 10th amendment, or have any basic knowlwdge of the machinery of our constitutional government? The words “general welfare” somehow blind people to the limited nature of federal power. Nit sure why, except that they personally like it when the feds do more things, and as such grab onto whatever’s available to justify themselves.
Hiw do you even know what the people are and aren’t able to do for themselves.l? Ugh, nevermind. That would be a pointless digression. What you quote doesn’t say what you say it says, is the main point. Far tron it. All it says is that Congress can levy taxes in so and so ways for so and so ends. Why regulating the national food supply for safety purposes jumps out at you from that is utterly beyond me.
“it *is* conservative to believe that the government should fulfilled its constitutionally mandated functions”
Where is the FDA mandated, again? Kindly quote the article and section. Or are you going to go on about the taxing power again?
Okay, but what government? Federal, state, local? Are you aware there’s a difference, or is it all of a piece to you? Have you ever bothered reading the 10th amendment, or have any basic knowlwdge of the machinery of our constitutional government? The words “general welfare” somehow blind people to the limited nature of federal power. Nit sure why, except that they personally like it when the feds do more things, and as such grab onto whatever’s available to justify themselves.
If you'd read some of my other posts, you'd see that I have a very good understanding of the difference between local, state and federal governments. So stop being sarcastic and claiming that I don't know what the constitution says.
Hiw do you even know what the people are and aren’t able to do for themselves.l? Ugh, nevermind. That would be a pointless digression. What you quote doesn’t say what you say it says, is the main point. Far tron it. All it says is that Congress can levy taxes in so and so ways for so and so ends. Why regulating the national food supply for safety purposes jumps out at you from that is utterly beyond me.
Even though you are clearly being sarcastic here, and allowing your sense of libertarian romanticism to blind you, I will give this a serious answer. I have found that answering the wilfully blind often seems futile (because they refuse to accept any facts that don't fit in their world view), but occasionally lurkers FReepmail to let me know how much they appreciate the information. The nature of your replies suggests that you genuinely do not know the vast amount of work going on behind the scenes to ensure that those oranges, that lettuce, that steak, that can of soup you so casually throw into your shopping basket won't make you sick or kill you.
The fact is that no one has the means, and very few people have the know-how to determine if a particular food is safe to eat. (As an aside, I *do* have the know-how, but I most certainly don't have the high-tech equipment in my kitchen to be able to test foods.) Can you do PCR in your kitchen? Do you have an HPLC or a mass spec machine in your living room? Do you know how to culture and identify bacteria, and do you have a selection of incubators (for growing different kinds of bacteria) in your home? Do you have all of the chemical reagents and equipment necessary to test for adulterants? If your answer is "no", then I have every reason to believe that you do not, in fact, have the ability to determine whether the food you purchase is safe or not.
As an example, botulin (a bacterial toxin) is odorless and tasteless; you have no way to know a can of food is deadly just by looking at it. Unfortunately, a teaspoon of that food is enough to kill you. Another example is E. coli H157:O7, which can be present in meat or produce at quantities sufficient to permanently disable or kill you--but it is invisible. These are just two examples; there are countless ways that food can become bacterially contaminated. That doesn't take into account the multitudes of other ways foods can become unfit to eat, through accident or wilful misconduct. Do you remember the melamine problem in pet foods a few years ago, where hundreds of pets died from food that looked perfectly good?
Another food safety issue is the investigation to determine the cause of outbreaks. Imagine that you land in the hospital because of botulin poisoning--how can you possibly know where you were poisoned? Did you get it from the can of beans you ate last week, or was it something at the restaurant you visited a couple of days ago? There are large enough problems with food safety in the current regulated environment; I shudder to think how difficult it would be to consistently acquire wholesome food if there were no regulations. Both human error and deliberate adulteration would run rampant in a regulation-free environment. I suppose, in your libertarian-colored world, people would just magically know which foods are dangerous and avoid them. But in the real world, that's unlikely to happen.
The FDA already does a decent job of trying to keep our food supply safe, but 3,000 deaths and nearly 50,000,000 illnesses still occur every year. The purpose of the new regulations is to improve the system so as to be even less reactive and more preventative.
“it *is* conservative to believe that the government should fulfilled its constitutionally mandated functions”
Where is the FDA mandated, again? Kindly quote the article and section. Or are you going to go on about the taxing power again?
Well, since you already know the pertinent section of the Constitution, I don't have to quote it again.
I consider any factor that kills more Americans than war (currently 3,000 deaths from tainted food per year, versus less than 7,000 from the entire Iraqi and Afghanistan wars) is absolutely a matter of general welfare.
Hmm, maybe I should dig up the quote about protecting Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic, too. It sure seems like tainted food could be classified as an enemy...